PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the efforts of the European Union (EU) and China in the past years to advance the Paris Agreement and welcomed "back home" the US in this global endeavour for which "action must be immediate".
"We have continued to go forward, to work together despite the American choice," Xinhua news agency quoted Macron as saying on Saturday at the Climate Ambition Summit 2020 co-convened by the UN, Britain and France.
He referred to the decision made in 2017 by outgoing US President Donald Trump to pull out of the legally binding Paris deal adopted in 2015 with an aim to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change.
"I really want to hail the European mobilisation and the formidable cooperation during these years with China," added the French president.
Macron also welcomed the decision of US President-elect Joe Biden to rejoin the Paris Agreement, saying: "Welcome back, welcome home."
"We do not have a lot of time ahead of us and the action must be immediate," he noted. "We must give ourselves a path and credible means to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050."
The Paris Agreement, adopted by 196 parties at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21), came into force on November 4, 2016. Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared with pre-industrial levels. (IANS)